The Watchman On The Wall

Eph 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Verse 13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

Friday, August 15, 2014

Aliyah For Gay Couples

The intersection
of Religion and State in Israel often seems permanently mired in the status
quo. However untenable that status quo may seem, it usually will not budge
without severe prodding. But sometimes—as in the decades-long effort to have
the state recognize civil unions—even such prodding bears little fruit. That’s
why a decision announced yesterday by Interior Minister Gideon Sa’ar came as
something of a surprise: In a letter to the Population and Immigration
Authority, Sa’arorderedthat the
granting of citizenship to the non-Jewish spouses of women and men who are
themselves eligible for aliyah to Israel would also apply to same-sex couples.

Aliyah—immigration
to the Jewish State—is governed by theLaw of Return. Enacted in 1950, it is the gateway to Israeli
citizenship. Though its original scope was exclusively limited to Jews, since
1970 the law has been expanded to grant aliyah rights to all children and
grandchildren of Jews (implicitly eschewing the traditional stance that Judaism
is matrilineal—that is, conferred only by Jewish mothers, rather than fathers),
and to the spouses (or partners) of Jews.

For more than 40 years, Jewish men and
women have been making aliyah with their gentile wives and husbands. Until this
week, however, government policy interpreted the law as if it referred only to
straight couples. It is worth noting that the drafters of the 1970 version of
the law neglected to clarify whether the law was limited to heterosexual
couples—most assuredly because in Golda Meir’s Israel, the possibility of gay
marriage did not occur to even the most liberal of Knesset members.

Cut to 44 years later. Though it stops
short of actually facilitating gay marriage on its own turf, Israel recognizes
such unions that were conducted abroad, and offers same-sex couples the vast
majority of the benefits it affords any other couple. The body of rights
afforded to members of the LGBT community has managed to grow steadily mostly
without attracting the ire of the ultra-Orthodox in large part because it is
limited to the civil sphere. Marriage is off the table—just as it is not an
option for any Jew who wishes to marry a “non-halachic” Jew, though ostensibly
all are equal citizens, Jewish enough for the Law of Return but not for the
State rabbinate, which holds complete control over marriage and divorce
conducted within Israel.

Minister Sa’ar’s decision is somewhat
unique, though, in that it goes beyond the strictly civil sphere. The Law of
Return is the closest thing to an answer that Israel has to the eternal
question of “who is a Jew?” By expanding its definitions—even if only via an
interpretation that does not actually veer from the text of the law—Sa’ar might
be playing with fire.

The decision is
especially remarkable because in recent months it appeared as Sa’ar was
re-inventing himself as the defender of the state’s Jewish character. Though an
avowed denizen of downtown Tel-Aviv, known to even moonlight on occasion as a
DJ, Sa’ar alienated many of that city’s secular residents when he effectivelyoutlawedmuch of
the commerce that takes place in the city over Shabbat. Had Sa’ar suddenly
found God? After all, he was rumored to have begun keeping the Sabbath himself.

The more likely explanation was more political
than personal: Sa’ar, one of Likud’s top leaders, was trying to gain popularity
with the ultra-Orthodox in an attempt to eventually lead the party and the
country (Prime Minister Netanyahu’s relations with the Haredi parties are at an
all-time low after he left them out of his current coalition). But why, then,
this latest expansion of the Law of Return, which might offset any political
gains from his Tel Aviv maneuvers? It could, of course, be an attempt to win
back his largely secular Tel Aviv base. It might also be a preemptive measure:
had the matter reached the Supreme Court, Sa’ar would have had trouble
explaining why same-sex couples were heretofore excluded.

Most likely, though, is that Sa’ar is
betting that he can enjoy the best of both worlds: his decision is surely
beneficial to any supporters of LGBT rights, and since it touches upon one of
Israel’s holy of holies—the Law of Return—it appears to be a particularly bold
move. But once they make aliyah, the law’s new beneficiaries, like many of its
veteran beneficiaries, gay and straight alike, will encounter the same
schizophrenic establishment generous with the civil rights it affords them
while at the same time fiercely protective of the rights that it does
not—chiefly, marriage. So long as he stays away from that hot button issue,
Gideon Sa’ar has little to worry about.